Dr. Sharon D. Raynor is the Department Chair and an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, NC.   Previously, for seven years, she taught in the English Department at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.

Dr. Raynor received both her Bachelor of Arts degree in English and her Master of Arts degree in Multicultural Literature at East Carolina University.  In August 2003, she completed her doctorate degree in Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.  Her doctoral dissertation is entitled, "Shattered Silence and Restored Souls: Bearing Witness and Testifying to Trauma and 'Truth' in the Narratives of Black Vietnam Veterans."

From 1999-2002, Dr. Raynor served as the Project Director for the North Carolina Humanities Council grant, "Breaking the Silence: The Unspoken Brotherhood of Vietnam Veterans" and as Co-Director for the Writers' Reading Series of Eastern North Carolina.  She also serves as a workshop leader for the Veterans History Project that is sponsored by the American Folklore Society, of which she is a member. Additionally, Dr. Raynor is a speaker for the North Carolina Speakers' Forum and a scholar for the "Let's Talk About It" Book Discussion Program, both sponsored by the North Carolina Humanities Council.

Dr. Raynor's most recent publications, "The World of Female Knowing According to Georgia Douglass Johnson," appeared in College Language Association Journal (CLA) and "Breaking the Silence: The Unspoken Brotherhood of Vietnam Veterans" appeared in NC Crossroads. Her forthcoming publications will appear in The Encyclopedia of African American Literature, The Encyclopedia of African American Folklore, Dos Passos Review, and From Around the World: Secular Authors and Biblical Perspectives.